Between Google and Brave I prefer using Brave, but am I the only one bothered that this move is an abuse of power of a company that has both a browser and a search engine? We all know where this leads to.
Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
181–190 of 571 posts
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#182I’ve been using Brave search for several months now. I switched the day that it was announced. The quality is fairly good, but I’m having troubling telling whether it’s just my own halo effect or if the initial quality that experienced has started to slip a little as it indexes more widely or something. At first I was impressed with how little spam ended up in top results, but lately exact queries for Python function…
I filled in the beta signup form for Kagi search [0] the other day and one of the questions was along the lines of "What must-have feature do you need in a new search engine?", and my answer was the ability to blacklist these spam sites for the exact same reasons. The major search engines are becoming close to useless.
[0] https://kagi.com
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#183I use DDG on desktop but on mobile they are unusable. Their app displays three ads out of 4 results in a page. A simple typo gives me completely different results. I will continue to hope there is some kind of subscription to Google search without tracking and all.
About the tracking part, you may like to check Whoogle Search - https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search It's Google results without the tracking, and it can be self-hosted.
This looks great. I wish Nextdns provided this.
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#184I've been using Brave for a few years now in combination with ublock origin - as Brave just does not block everything that's annoying. I use duckduckgo and don't see a need to switch to Brave search. I primarily like the Brave sync feature, and it's actually the second main reason I recommend using Brave these days. It was quite junky when it was first released but by now it works like a charm for my 6 devices.
Same boat, but after using brave search, it really is better (IME).
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#185I’ve been using Brave search for several months now. I switched the day that it was announced. The quality is fairly good, but I’m having troubling telling whether it’s just my own halo effect or if the initial quality that experienced has started to slip a little as it indexes more widely or something. At first I was impressed with how little spam ended up in top results, but lately exact queries for Python function…
How would you say that the Brave Browser and Brave Search compare with something like Firefox and DuckDuckGo (plus a plugin, like uBlock Origins), if you've used those? Anyone else care to comment? Personally, i'm still someone that's used more to Firefox and is more familiar with Mozilla due to them having been around for longer, but their recent decisions might make some people reconsider their choices and look int…
For browser biggest UI difference is tabs - they squeeze instead of scrolling. There are no plugins that can create a proper sidebar, but out of the box you can organise them into foldable groups.
Search results are noticeably better, especially for non-english and location-specific results. What's worse is image search - unlike with text you tend to get only 2-3 good, relevant results, everything else is only somewhat related. I suggest giving it a try even if you'll decide against browser switch.
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#186Unfortunately can't use it: I'm on my private VPN almost all the time (need it for work). VPN is hosted as OpenVPN service on German Digital Ocean server to have static public IP. The VPN is mine only (sure IP is not), I'm the only person who uses it. Brave Search shows error on accessing: https://ibb.co/72L3mc5 . Other search engines open without problems. Turning off VPN helps, but I don't really understand why my…
Same here, I’m in Shenzhen using Shadowsocks VPNs and many of my faster exit IPs were being blocked in recent months. Other times there are 5xx errors and when it does work, it’s significantly slower than Google and even DDG, especially on lossy / jittery links.
I really hope they improve the service, I was enjoying it as my default for a while.
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#187I'm actually tempted to start using Brave. I'm still holding out with Firefox despite Mozilla trying very hard to get rid of us (to the point where the thought has struck me more than once if the current CEO of Mozilla is in the pocket of Google). If at some point the last competing mainstream browser engine is gone I'll probably go for Brave and I might start testing it this week.
What Mozilla is doing now with Firefox should be taught in business schools as an example how to destroy a brand.
It really is strange and I don't understand what's driving all these bad decisions.
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
What Mozilla is doing now with Firefox should be taught in business schools as an example how to destroy a brand.
It really is strange and I don't understand what's driving all these bad decisions.
My guess is that they're unhappy of being a fringe browser with a "small" (a few millions) crowd of loyal users, but instead want to be "great again".
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#189I’ve been using Brave search for several months now. I switched the day that it was announced. The quality is fairly good, but I’m having troubling telling whether it’s just my own halo effect or if the initial quality that experienced has started to slip a little as it indexes more widely or something. At first I was impressed with how little spam ended up in top results, but lately exact queries for Python function…
I remember reading in HN an idea about allowing people to customize the weights used to filter search results - a search engine that provided that, where I could use some curated configuration file. Maybe I could have profiles like "cooking", "programming", "news" and help the search engine even better to understand my intent. Or just have the "don't show results from this site again" button from youtube taken into g…
Brave put out a white paper regarding a version of this.
Have they followed up with a product/feature?
It was the only portion of brave’s approach that was interesting to me. It’d be disappointing if they dropped it.
Brave Goggles: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/goggles.pdf
Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser
#190I'm actually tempted to start using Brave. I'm still holding out with Firefox despite Mozilla trying very hard to get rid of us (to the point where the thought has struck me more than once if the current CEO of Mozilla is in the pocket of Google). If at some point the last competing mainstream browser engine is gone I'll probably go for Brave and I might start testing it this week.
I totally get you, as a long time Mozilla fan, I'm sad to see the direction towards which Firefox and Mozilla as a whole are going.
But it's not like Brave is ethically or technically better. They use Blink (the same engine as Chrome) and therefore contribute to the mono-culture of the web.[1]
They collect donations on behalf of content creators[2], they created this "Attention Token" based on etherium to replace ads with all the controversies surrounding cryptocurrencies (from the pyramid-scheme to the global-warming topic, I know the latter is not valid with Etherium anymore), …
I think that these days, it's more about choosing the lesser evil as a browser.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brave_(web_browse...